World briefs 2/17/04

Guyana's prime minister calls for hit squad probe

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Guyana's prime minister has called for an independent commission to investigate allegations that the government ran a hit squad blamed for more than 40 killings in the past year. Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, the No. 2 official in the government after the president, made the proposal Sunday night in an interview on an independent television station. He added that such a commission should offer pardons and amnesty for those who provide evidence to investigators. Police, under the Home Affairs Ministry, currently are investigating the claims. But critics say the probe is not credible because Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj has been accused of leading an extra-judicial hit squad to battle a surge in violent crime in the South American country of 700,000 residents.

Missing from Chechen war concern of president

GROZNY, Russia -- The president of war-shattered Chechnya said Monday that tracing the fate of hundreds of missing people was a top concern, but he skirted allegations that a militia under his son's command was behind many of the disappearances. Since the 1999 start of the second Chechen war in a decade, reports of disappearances have been widespread, with blame fixed variously on the republic's separatist rebels and the Russian soldiers fighting them. Especially feared are so-called "mopping-up operations," in which young men suspected of rebel connections are picked up by soldiers, never to be heard from again, locals and human rights groups say.

Brazil's president facing first corruption challenge

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Opposition lawmakers Monday called for a congressional investigation into allegations that an aide to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva had solicited illegal campaign contributions, the first major scandal to hit his administration. Silva, who in the past 24 years has built his leftist Workers' Party on a platform of honesty and service to the poor, fired the aide, Waldomiro Diniz, on Friday. In a story last week, the magazine Epoca alleged that Diniz had solicited illegal campaign contributions for the party from Carlos Ramos, also known as Carlinhos Cachoeira -- "Charlie the Waterfall." Epoca described Ramos as a kingpin of the Rio de Janeiro-based numbers game, an illegal lottery run from open-air bars and coffee shops and popular among poor Brazilians.

Protests against Irish government halt workers

DUBLIN, Ireland -- A four-hour strike by union workers interrupted bus and train services across Ireland on Monday stranding thousands of commuters, while doctors refused to perform non-emergency operations in a separate protest. Ireland's two major unions for bus and train workers ordered the stoppage in several cities to protest government plans to break up the state-owned transportation company, Coras Iompair Eireann, or CIE. Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney said the government wants to transfer control so no single company could bring the capital's buses to a standstill as happened Monday. Meanwhile, doctors refused to perform about 100 non-emergency operations in their own protest against government changes to their malpractice insurance. Doctors, however, said they would perform emergency operations.

Frankfurt airport begins iris scan for border control

BERLIN -- Travelers at Frankfurt airport, continental Europe's busiest, can now enter Germany with a three-second scan of their eyes, providing they sign up for a test project for iris recognition technology. Passengers in the six-month program still go through regular security controls, but can bypass conventional passport checks. They can simply put their passport though a scanner, take a quick look at a camera and a few seconds later enter the country, airport officials said. To qualify, passengers would need background checks by German border police, a machine-readable passport, be citizens of the European Union or Switzerland, register at the airport and have an iris scan on file.-- From wire reports

Spokesman for Chirac's party convicted in scandal

PARIS -- A court Monday convicted the spokesman for President Jacques Chirac's party in a money-laundering scandal eight years ago, the latest guilty verdict to rattle the party. Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, spokesman for Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement, was fined $19,150 for his role in the secret financing of the now-defunct Republican Party in 1996. Meanwhile, former defense minister and Republican leader Francois Leotard was convicted and given a 10-month suspended prison term for having financed the party with "false loans" in 1996. Donnedieu de Vabres was office director for Leotard while he served as defense minister from 1993-95. They were convicted of helping deliver $896,000 in government money to an Italian company that then returned the cash to the party in the form of a loan that was never declared.

WHO says bird flu not going away soon

NEW DELHI, India -- Bird flu is not going away anytime soon, the World Health Organization said Monday, as South Asian health officials agreed to cooperate in preventing the disease from spreading. The officials adopted a resolution extending a temporary ban on all poultry and egg imports from countries affected by bird flu. The import of pet birds from all countries will also be temporarily banned. An emergency meeting of officials from the seven-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was held to discuss ways to protect their region from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. Ten countries -- mostly in East Asia -- are battling the disease in fowl, and have destroyed more than 60 million birds to contain the virus. Taiwan and Pakistan have reported a less-serious strain.

Putin pledges to punish those responsible for collapse

MOSCOW -- Rescuers searched Monday for more victims of the weekend roof collapse at a Moscow water park, and President Vladimir Putin pledged to punish those responsible for sloppy construction or poor maintenance. The official death toll from the disaster Saturday night was 25, but Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said as many as 13 people still missing are probably dead. Luzhkov, who visited the ruins of the Transvaal Park on Moscow's southwestern outskirts early in the morning, said that there was no hope of finding anyone alive. The victims included seven women, 12 men and six children, the youngest of whom was five years old, rescue officials said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

-- From wire reports